


Cut and Run

by rauchblau



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, M/M, Texting, basically the assassin game au no one asked for, the most ridiculous thing i've ever written save me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:51:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8283257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rauchblau/pseuds/rauchblau
Summary: A month into the semester, Iwaizumi Hajime really just wants to hand in his assignments in peace. But then two knives on the floor of his room mark the beginning of a campus tradition that his roommate has conveniently neglected to inform him of. And while for the next seven days, (almost) nowhere is safe and no one is to be trusted, Sugawara Koushi knows this is a tradition that fashions beautiful friendships.





	1. 01__SATURDAY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi and welcome to the Murder AU, or, my attempt to extend the lasertag setting into a week of the Seijou third-years chasing each other with plastic knives. Prepare for rivalries, reluctant friendships, and general ridiculousness. I love writing this, so I hope you have as much fun reading it!
> 
> Inspired by [this tumblr post](http://alloverthegaf.tumblr.com/post/142219232256/alloverthegaf-its-murder-time-at-college-so) \- I wish my university were that cool.

A month into the semester, Iwaizumi Hajime likes to think that he has settled in. He knows a couple of good study spaces, which cheap restaurants to avoid, and which librarian tends to ‘forget about’ late fees with a wink. There are smaller, less obvious things, too: He knows not to press more than one button in the old elevator (actually he has taken to using the stairs instead of making the painfully slow journey to the eighth floor), and knows which back door of the lab does not close at ten every night. He even has operated the capricious washing machines in the basement. In short, he feels like he has figured out how life works at his new university.

At least until he comes back from the kitchen one morning, balancing two cups of coffee and two apples, and finds two knives on the floor of his dorm room, just inside the door.

He stops short at the sight, but there is not much he can do with his hands full, so he steps over them gingerly and nudges the door shut with an elbow. The sound of it falling close makes the slumped form of his roommate flinch at the desk, though he doesn’t lift his head from where it is pillowed on his arms.

Hanamaki is still in the same crumpled shirt he has worn the morning before and his hair is sticking up in odd strands, but his stacks of paper have migrated to the other side of the desk and there are three cups with coffee stains that Iwaizumi has definitely washed before going to bed. Uncapped pens and multi-coloured notes have spilled onto the floor.

Iwaizumi crosses the room and leans against the corner of the desk, careful not to jostle the papers. Hanamaki straightens a little when he catches a whiff of the steaming coffee. Not bothering to pry his eyes open, he turns to reach for one of them. Iwaizumi pushes it into the pitifully outstretched hand and watches Hanamaki down half of the scalding contents in one go.

“I can’t believe you’re still pulling all-nighters. Isn’t that a bad habit you’re supposed to shake off after first year?”

Hanamaki gives him a look over the rim of his cup that somehow manages to be both scornful and aloof. “That’s just something they tell the weak to make them feel better about themselves.”

“Yeah, you’re the picture of health and good life choices right now”, says Iwaizumi.

He sips his own coffee, watching Hanamaki’s eyes go in and out of focus at irregular intervals. It’s almost peaceful. He deposits one of the apples on top of the closest stack of textbooks and takes a bite out of the other one before he remembers the knives again and crosses the room to examine them.

On closer inspection, they prove to be simple white plastic knives, each with a name written on them with black pen. Neither of the names rings a bell for Iwaizumi. They might for Hanamaki, though, who has lived here for the past two years and has also at odd times forgotten to tell Iwaizumi about certain peculiarities of the house – like the washing machines.

He carries the knives back over to the windows and drops them in front of his roommate, who has gone back to dozing over his coffee. “What’s this? Some kind of elaborate gift exchange?”

As the knives clatter onto the table, Hanamaki’s eyes move over them without recognition for a moment. Then he shoots up from his chair with a shout, ruffling papers and nearly spilling the coffee.

“Fuck! I can’t believe I almost forgot!”

He whirls and grabs Iwaizumi by the shoulders, expression suddenly awake and very grave.

“My friend. You have ventured out to strange and dangerous lands and have returned to me unscathed!”

“What the fuck?”

Iwaizumi wonders briefly whether he ought to feel Hanamaki’s forehead (his eyes _do_ have a feverish gleam), but then Hanamaki drops his hands and makes a show of looking around the room, so it’s probably just his usual antics.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe here. But we better close the blinds and tape up the doors. You have any black tape?”

“What? No. I need to get going; I’ve got to tutor this kid at ten. Just tell me what’s going on with these knives.”

Hanamaki glances at them, then at his unfinished assignment, and sighs. “Alas, I have not the time to disclose this elaborate tradition of our house to you. Take this with you, my brave Padawan.” He thrusts one of the knives at Iwaizumi. “Oh, and one more thing: Trust no one.”

Iwaizumi takes a deep breath. “Hanamaki. What the hell is going on.”

“It’s Murder week!”

 

 

 

 

“Murder week”, says the first-year Iwaizumi is technically supposed to tutor. Except today they’ve apparently turned that around. Seated at their usual library table, they have pushed their books to the side in favour of laying out their respective plastic knives. Kindaichi is nervously playing with his, eyes darting to the sides like he expects to be jumped from behind a bookshelf any minute. He speaks in a low, urgent whisper. Iwaizumi is struggling to keep a straight face, but he actually likes Kindaichi, so he supposes he should make the effort.

“They told us about it during freshman orientation; you probably missed that. Um, since you’re not a freshman and all.” Kindaichi flushes and ducks his head a little.

“Anyway. It’s this thing all the dorms do, where everyone gets a knife with a name on it and then you have to find the person and kill them – I mean, not technically kill them, of course!” 

“I figured”, says Iwaizumi drily.

Kindaichi’s flush rises a little higher, but he ploughs on.

“So, then you inherit the other person’s knife and have to find the next person, and so on. Until there’s one winner. They wouldn’t tell us what the prize was, though.

“And, there’s a couple of safe spaces, of course. They can’t kill you when you’re in your room or in one of the kitchens, or when you’re, um, not wearing any clothes.”

Iwaizumi snorts. “Wonder who came up with that. So you’re telling me that everyone in the building is out to get everyone else for a week?”

Kindaichi nods rapidly. “Yeah, we, um. Technically we shouldn’t be here. Can we… move this to one of the kitchens?”

Iwaizumi looks at his knife for a moment, then stuffs it into the pocket of his hoodie. “Don’t think so. I guess I’ll manage to protect you for the rest of the hour. Now, about that slide from last week…”

 

 

 

 

After finishing up with Kindaichi and escorting the boy back to the kitchen on his floor, where he dropped into one of the hard plastic chairs with obvious relief, Iwaizumi takes the metro to the labs. Gazing out on the busy city they are speeding by, he contemplates ‘accidentally’ dropping his knife somewhere and carrying on as usual. This week alone, he has two reports and a presentation due, and the only people he has seen taking this seriously so far are Hanamaki, who doesn’t count, and Kindaichi, who is a sweet kid, but trying so very hard to fit in that he would do whatever was asked of him.

But as he reaches campus again, he notices more and more that the few students around are behaving… oddly. It feels like people are moving in larger clumps than usual, and they are definitely casting suspicious looks at each other. One boy who looks like he might be a first-year is crab-walking with his back to the concrete walls of the maths building. And when Iwaizumi has almost reached the lab, just as he is crossing a shadowy spot below a big tree, he witnesses his first stabbing: a gentle, unassuming thing; two friends locked in a greeting and then a flash of white. The screeching of the offended party and the laughter of the other guy follow Iwaizumi up the stairs and into the draughty corridor. Really, Sugawara is only the last straw.

Iwaizumi is well aware of what a lucky strike his lab partner is – Sugawara is tidy and hard-working, knows what he is doing in at least as many instances as Iwaizumi does, _and_ he has legible handwriting. On top of it all, he is genuinely friendly and easy to talk to, and, despite a mischievous streak, overall a sensible person. And he is currently taking three rapid steps backwards as Iwaizumi approaches him.

“What’s the name on your knife? If you lie to me, I _will_ at some point hear an alarming noise from the centrifuge and will be obliged to turn it off.”

“That’s your coursework going down the drain, too”, Iwaizumi points out, but Sugawara’s imperiously outstretched hand doesn’t waver.

With a sigh, Iwaizumi digs the knife out of his pocket and holds it out to his friend. “Not yours.”

“Great!”, says Sugawara, immediately all sunny smiles again. “Let’s get to work then. I’m glad we don’t have to stay long today; I’m already hungry.”

He holds the door open to usher Iwaizumi into the lab. Silently contemplating his life choices, Iwaizumi steps through. The sense of impending doom catches up with him a moment later, but there is already something thin pressing into his lower back and he freezes mid-step. The point of Sugawara’s knife is resting just above his left kidney. Beautifully executed, if he knows Sugawara at all.

“Did you just—“, he starts, half-turned to throw his friend a disbelieving glance, but his accusation is cut off by a delighted giggle. Sugawara withdraws the knife and gently pushes Iwaizumi the rest of the way inside the lab to close the door behind them.

“It’s not yours – sadly, your face would have made for a wonderful story. Anyway, Hajime, I see you have _not_ been properly taught. Rule number one, trust—“

“No one”, Iwaizumi says along with him. “Yeah, yeah, I get that now.”

“Don’t worry; it’s a tradition that fashions beautiful friendships. I met Daichi in first year when he was trying to assassinate me”, Sugawara assures him cheerfully, stashing his own knife away up his sleeve.

In Iwaizumi’s humble opinion, Sawamura Daichi is hoping for a little more than just a beautiful friendship, but he keeps his mouth shut and just nods along. Sugawara continues to chat as they work, telling stories of failed and successful assassination attempts, legendary tactics, and tricks so old even the first-years don’t fall for them. By the time they finish, Iwaizumi is both amused and a little on edge – maybe Kindaichi’s paranoia isn’t so bad a response to the first day of Murder week.

“You _are_ going to participate seriously, aren’t you?”, Sugawara asks as they are cleaning up. “In the beginning it’s always a little lacklustre, because you have to eliminate all the people who don’t really get into it, but it gets a lot more fun during the last days. And”—he gives Iwaizumi a charming smile—“it would be really sad if you were the only one of my friends who’s not playing, wouldn’t it?”

Iwaizumi might have hesitated if it weren’t for the competitive glint in Sugawara’s eyes. The whole thing still sounds borderline ridiculous, but it also promises fun and some sort of strange thrill, like an extended outdoor session of laser tag. So he nods.

“I’m in.”

Sugawara claps him on the back with surprising force for someone with such slight build. “I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me! Now let’s go get some food. I’d say we take the café in the building – that might be a good place to brief you.” 

“Or to get stabbed”, Iwaizumi mutters, but he slings his bag over his shoulder and falls into step beside Sugawara.

The café is crowded, not unusual for a Saturday. Groups of people are clustered around the longer tables, discussing or passing around study material; others are sitting alone, focused on their reading, or are eating with the air of someone who’d rather be at a library table. But a lot of the usual loiterers are missing, and the atmosphere is tense. It would be ridiculous if it weren’t that enticing.

Sugawara insists on settling at a table close to the door, gesturing for Iwaizumi to sit down across from him. “I’m watching your back, you’re watching mine”, he instructs.

Iwaizumi complies, feeling a little exposed with his back to the room. But most of their meal is uneventful, with Sugawara pointing out people between bites of spicy curry. Over his shoulder, Iwaizumi watches a guy listlessly hand over a knife to a determined-looking girl. He immediately turns back to his friends; she shrugs and crosses the room to a group of her own. In passing, Iwaizumi sees her rolling her eyes, clearly annoyed at her target’s lack of spirit.  

“Oh”, Sugawara says suddenly, catching his attention again. “ _He’s_ here.”

“Who?”

“Oikawa Tooru. Volleyball wonder, all-round golden boy, and last year’s Murder champion. He’s ruthless and competitive as hell.”

It’s probably impossible to go to this university without hearing of Oikawa Tooru – especially if you are harbouring an interest in volleyball. Iwaizumi knows his name, has even seen it mentioned in the occasional article in _Volleyball Monthly_ , has definitely seen it mentioned in the university paper. Now that Sugawara is subtly pointing him out, the guy in question looks vaguely familiar – they’ve probably passed each other in hallways a couple of times, or maybe Iwaizumi has seen a photograph somewhere. But while Oikawa’s appearance seems unsurprising, his demeanour does not. He is talking to a group of girls beside the door, all fluffy hair, bright smiles and exaggerated gestures.

“Huh”, says Iwaizumi, unimpressed. “Sure doesn’t look the part.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate him”, Sugawara says. “He looks flashy, sure, but he’s _good_. You should come watch one of their games with me one day.”

Iwaizumi hums, taking another bite of his own curry.

“In _fact_ ”, says Sugawara slowly, “they have a practice match tomorrow. I promised Daichi to come cheer him on – why don’t you come, too?”

Iwaizumi is still watching Oikawa, trying to detect something like ruthlessness beneath that tilted head and the fancy-looking cardigan. “I might”, he replies distractedly. Is Oikawa taking a selfie with two of the girls? “I should probably finish that report tomorrow, and a break would be good. When is it?”

“Around three in the afternoon, if I remember correctly. I’ll double-check it and text you the details later. Oh, by the way, what was the name on your knife again?”

Iwaizumi tears his eyes away from where Oikawa is _definitely_ taking a series of selfies with the girls, complete with a peace sign and a wink. Sugawara is smiling sweetly. Iwaizumi digs his knife out of his pockets and slides it across the table.

“Ah, yes”, Sugawara murmurs. “She’s sitting over there, in that group of girls by the window. Short hair, blue jacket? Looks like they’re leaving soon. I’ll take your tray; you go on and make your first kill.”

He makes a shooing motion, looking at Iwaizumi like a proud mother.

“Your innocent face conceals a lot of scheming”, Iwaizumi informs him, but he takes up the knife again and slips it inside his sleeve. Shoving the last bite into his mouth, he pushes back his chair and makes his way to the door. When he passes Oikawa’s group on his way out, they are laughing about something, and Iwaizumi could swear he hears Oikawa giggle – a tinkling, carefree thing. He grins to himself. If this guy is the worst Murder week can offer, it’s going to be a walk in the park.

 

 

 

 

**MURDER WEEK RANKING, DAY 1: TOP TEN**

 

Ichisada Masuyo (6)

Terushima Yuuji (5)

Ono Takeji (5)

Oikawa Tooru (5)

Aone Takanobu (4)

Akaike Chie (4)

Hanamaki Takahiro (3)

Kuroo Tetsurou (3)

Sawamura Daichi (3)

Nametsu Mai (3)

 

 

 

**MOST NOTEWORTHY**

 

  * 10:16 am, Toda-sensei reiterates his annual ban on the game during his lectures. Keep that in mind if you care about your grades.
  * 03:56 pm, two fourth-year students engage in an impromptu fencing match in the 3rd floor corridor of the engineering building. No priceless robot components were harmed.



 

~~It’s the first day. It’s excusably slow.~~

 

 

(The last two sentences are scratched out. Below, in red ink:

  * 06:04 am, the university volleyball team’s ace breaks down during morning practice as he is, again, annihilated on the first day. 
  * 12:37 am, a first-year student drops a tray upon spotting her target. Target moves in to help clear today’s vegetarian option off the cafeteria floor, is annihilated under excessive apologies. Smooth work, though the line was delayed for five minutes.
  * 3:47 pm, this week’s first case of someone invoking the ‘no clothes’ rule on campus. Hideyoshi-sensei is not amused. Kudos to a brave, and now suspended, third-year student.
  * do your job properly.)



 

(below, in blue: ‘doing my job properly’ does not mean ‘publicly humiliating people’)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watch me post this chapter two days before university starts again.
> 
> A note on background: as you may have noticed, this is essentially set in limbo (read: a mashup of university experiences from at least four different countries, shamelessly tweaked to suit my plot) and I apologize for it.
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://rauchblauwrites.tumblr.com/)


	2. 02__SUNDAY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By Sunday evening, Iwaizumi has accumulated six plastic knives and Oikawa's name is all he hears. He thinks he might be cursed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The start of the semester hit me harder than I expected, but anyway, here's a new chapter! Some Iwaizumi and Oikawa in case we don't get any of them in tonight's episode AGAIN. 
> 
> Thanks to my girl [Cutiepiehinata](https://twitter.com/tobio_chan), who patiently offers her help when I get stuck and who insisted on Ushijima at least cameo-ing in this one ;)

Sunday morning is peaceful. It’s still cool enough that the air feels fresh, but the sky already has the deep, clear blue of summer. Iwaizumi edits his lab report to the sound of Hanamaki’s snoring and goes for a run around campus afterwards, his newest knife shoved up his sleeve already out of habit. When he stops by the vending machine behind the geography building to get a drink, there is someone in line before him, patiently feeding small coins into the machine. Iwaizumi stands off to the side, waiting, and watches the guy pull out a garishly coloured package with a small triumphant sound. He is tall and lanky, with shaggy hair dyed blonde, and looks like he might be a first-year. It’s only when he turns around that Iwaizumi notes the distinctive black strands of hair sticking up from his forehead in what Sugawara has eloquently described as _you can’t miss him, he looks like a rooster_.

“Excuse me, are you Koganegawa Kanji?”

The boy’s eyes widen in alarm. Without a word, he spins on his heels and runs, still clutching his drink.

“I’ll take that as a yes”, Iwaizumi mutters and, with a longing look at the rows of cool drinks before him, takes off after Koganegawa’s retreating form.

“I’m not… letting you catch me!”, Koganegawa yells over his shoulder as he skids around the corner of the building and makes for the square in front of it, leaping over concrete benches with his long legs flailing in the air. Iwaizumi is keeping up without too much effort: he might have sacrificed his high school sport for the sake of his university career, but he’s still trying to keep in shape. And while Koganegawa’s muscles are cold and he is already panting hard, Iwaizumi is warmed up, but not overly exhausted from half an hour of running along the river that meanders through campus.

Koganegawa leads him through back alleys, over another open square, along under a series of skywalks connecting two tall buildings that might be the law faculty. By the time they are speeding past the glass front of the library, Iwaizumi is grinning with the thrill of the chase, thinking that he might understand now why his friends are so excited about this game. Koganegawa suddenly veers to the right and throws himself against a door.

Iwaizumi follows, blinking in the sudden dimness of a badly lit corridor.

“Which department is this?”, he calls out, following the first-year’s footsteps up a wide set of stairways.

“Humanities”, Koganegawa yells back, still hurtling upstairs at full speed. Iwaizumi’s calves are burning, and he feels almost like he is back in high school, pushing his body forward with every step, mind detached from aching muscles in a delicious rush of _faster better more_.

Forced to adapt to the stairs, Koganegawa has lost the advantage of his long strides and Iwaizumi is catching up rapidly. The lighting is getting better the higher up they come. They pass by a startled-looking girl on the second floor, and then Iwaizumi is almost close enough to seize Koganegawa’s shoulder with his outstretched arm, but judges it too dangerous on the stairs. The first-year throws a glance over his shoulder again, eyes wide and feverish.

“Will you… go away… if I look myself—into the toilet?”

“I’m afraid not”, Iwaizumi says, as gently as possible with his breath, too, coming in gasps by now.

“The girls’— toilet?”, Koganegawa tries hopefully.

“Nope”, retorts Iwaizumi, and then they reach the hallway of the third floor and his hand closes around Koganegawa’s shoulder. They stumble to a stop. Koganegawa drops to the floor, arms and legs splayed out like a starfish, still clutching what Iwaizumi now sees is strawberry milk. Iwaizumi watches his heaving chest and pinched expression and feels absurdly sorry.

“Shall I poke you with it for good measure?”, he asks, pulling the knife out of his sleeve.

Apparently that had been a good thing to say. Koganegawa brightens instantly and sits up.

“If I have to die, I wanna die in a really cool way! Maybe stab me in the heart?”

He sounds so excited that Iwaizumi laughs. “Actually, it’s pretty hard to kill someone by stabbing them with a knife. Your ribs are in the way, and all sorts of tissue. You’d have to know exactly where to put the knife, like here”—he touches the spot on his own chest— “below the eighth rib, and then push upwards at a certain angle. If you don’t get it exactly right, you just hit a rib and nothing much happens, or you end up puncturing the lung without reaching the heart.”

Koganegawa shudders.

“Exactly”, Iwaizumi says. “So, you know, generally don’t go around killing people, but if you’re not some psychopath who knows precisely what they’re doing, cutting the throat is your safest bet.”

Koganegawa grins. “That’s awesome! I’m gonna cut everyone’s throats next year then! Thank you, um…?”

“Iwaizumi Hajime.” He extends a hand to help the first-year off the floor. The boy takes it and jumps to his feet, still looking excited.

“Thank you, Iwaizumi-senpai! So cool! How do you know so much about murder?”

“Ah, that.” Iwaizumi shrugs. “I had an anatomy professor who liked to point out mistakes in crime fiction. Some of it stuck.”

Koganegawa _ooh_ s. “So you study medicine? I’m a business major. I don’t really like it that much, but it’s what my parents want me to do, so. But I also play volleyball, and that’s great!”

“Ah, you’re on the team? I heard you have a practice match this afternoon.”

“That’s right! I probably won’t get to play – I’m a setter, but I’m only a first-year and my senpai are awesome, especially Oikawa-san! But he’s teaching me a lot and he’s always telling me to watch closely and help him figure out the weaknesses of the other team, because eyes on the bench are important too, you know? And then afterwards Oikawa-senpai always asks me what I’ve noticed, and at first I didn’t notice much at all, but I’m getting a lot better recently!”

“Sounds like a great guy”, Iwaizumi allows, turning towards the stairs. Koganegawa trails him back to the dorms like an excited puppy. It’s kind of adorable, even if it entails an extended lecture on Oikawa Tooru’s many virtues and Iwaizumi already feels like he has heard that name far too many times in the past twenty-four hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He meets Sugawara in front of the gym a little later and they find themselves seats in the stands. Their team has a decent support squad, Iwaizumi notices – it’s rather crowded for a simple practice match, and there are quite a number of girls, too, especially in the front rows.

“We’re going out for celebratory dinner and drinks after the game, do you want to come with?”, Sugawara asks over the excited buzz of the audience, primly setting his feet on the back of the unoccupied seat before him.

“Thanks, but maybe another time. I need to do the shopping for my useless roommate and then check up on Kindaichi – I’m pretty sure he hasn’t left his room since yesterday.”

“Turnip-kun?”

Iwaizumi grins. “That one.”

“You’re such a mother, Hajime.”

Iwaizumi elbows him, rather gently. “You’re one to talk.”

He doesn’t get a reply, because the team starts filing into the gym. Sugawara waves to Sawamura, who holds up a hand and smiles in answer, nodding at Iwaizumi when he notices him. Sawamura is wearing the captain’s jersey, the number two bold and white on his chest. Iwaizumi watches the players cluster around the benches, forming a haphazard circle around their coach, and isn’t particularly surprised when he finds that the jersey with the number one is worn by none other than Oikawa Tooru. Oikawa looks just as unnecessarily styled as the last time he’s seen him, his gestures still gaudy; but Iwaizumi also notices the way the team moves around him, and how the coach lets him speak for a while and then nods approvingly.

Sugawara’s elbow to his side draws Iwaizumi’s attention away from the back of Oikawa’s head.

“Today’s your chance for a chicken chase”, Sugawara murmurs, jerking his chin towards the second- and third-string players. Koganegawa is easy to spot among them, not only because of his hairstyle or his height. He is gesticulating excitedly to another player, miming what looks suspiciously like a stabbing motion. Iwaizumi feels the corners of his mouth twitch.

“Apparently I already taught him a new life skill this morning.”

“I knew you’d be a natural at this”, Sugawara says happily. “Who’s next?”

“I’ll show you later. How’s it been going for you?”

“Aah, it’s been a little slow. My target’s on a field trip with her department until Tuesday, so I won’t be able to do anything until then.”

The whistle interrupts them then, and they both turn to focus on the court.

The whole team is good – both teams are –, but Iwaizumi can’t help watching Oikawa in particular. He is undeniably at the centre of the game, controlling, steering, influencing – Iwaizumi has read somewhere that Oikawa commands his players like a legion, but now that he actually sees him on the court, he finds that description lacking, or even misleading. Oikawa’s control is subtle, like he is giving way to each individual player’s demands, considering their styles and preferences and threading the team together to make something that moves as a whole. He is, as much as it pains Iwaizumi to admit it, mesmerizing.

And then he is stepping up to serve. The atmosphere in the gym tightens as if the audience has collectively inhaled and is now holding its breath. Iwaizumi’s eyes flit to Sugawara, who is wearing a smug smile and stubbornly facing the court, refusing to indulge his curiosity.

Oikawa’s face is transformed. All flashiness has left him – he is spinning the ball, almost absent-mindedly, eyes contemplating the other side of the court. One of the players brings up his hands to shield the back of his head; faint laughter drifts up to the stands. Oikawa pays it no heed. He tosses the ball up, fluidly slips into the run-up to a jump serve, and then Iwaizumi loses track of the ball for a split second before it smacks into the court, the opposing team’s libero diving too late.

Sugawara winks at Iwaizumi over the cheers of the audience.

Oikawa is walking back to the serving line, motions stripped down to reveal bare power and assurance. Iwaizumi watches closely as he executes his jump serve again. His form is impeccable. The libero receives the ball this time, by the skin of his teeth, it looks like, but the ball is off and the resulting spike easily blocked. The ace, a burly guy with striped hair, tackles Oikawa into a line of waiting players with a whoop.

“He’s quite easy on the eyes, isn’t he?”, Sugawara quips.

Iwaizumi glares at him and spends the rest of the game carefully dividing up his attention between watching all of the players and trying to tie Sugawara’s shoelaces together under their seats, because apparently Murder week has turned all of them into five year-olds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two hours later, in the household goods aisle of the small 7-Eleven on campus, Iwaizumi makes a mental note to never leave Hanamaki in charge of the shopping list during Murder week again. The scrap of paper in his hand just says ‘dinner’, ‘more dinner’, ‘rice’, and ‘maybe ramen??’. He is by now intimately acquainted with the vegetables currently on sale and has composed two dishes from scratch, hoping that he hasn’t forgotten any vital ingredients. He is also wondering whether they might have run out of laundry detergent – hence the household goods aisle. The old-fashioned clock over the checkout is rapidly approaching six p.m.

He absently weighs two enormous plastic bottles, wondering whether he would prefer his laundry to smell like apples or like tangerines (neither choice is particularly appealing, actually), when someone steps into his personal space. Over his shoulder, Iwaizumi can only see parts of what appears to be a sports club jacket, and the upper contents of a shopping basket slung over an arm. The guy is close enough that Iwaizumi can smell his shampoo even over the general vaguely clean scent of approximately five hundred bottles of detergent around them. He must have come straight from the shower. Maybe that’s what tips him off – or maybe it’s the obnoxious singsong tone of voice, vaguely familiar, which is repeating a version of his name so horribly butchered that Iwaizumi opts not to react at all.

“Iwa-chan”, comes the voice a third time, undeterred.

Iwaizumi closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Then he opens them again and turns, neatly sidestepping the other so that he has at least part of his personal space back and doesn’t need to tilt his head quite so much to look him in the eye. He is only half surprised to catch sight of the fluffy head of Oikawa Tooru, who has about five centimetres on Iwaizumi and is looming like he’s all too aware of the fact. He is also not currently out celebrating his victory with his teammates, which strikes Iwaizumi as odd for someone so sociable. He’d really like to ask him why he’s here bothering people in a crappy campus supermarket instead, but there are more pressing matters that need to be attended to first.

“What did you just call me?”

Oikawa blinks – the picture of bewildered innocence. “You _are_ Iwaizumi, right?”

Iwaizumi doesn’t bother to affirm it for him. “What do you want?”

Oikawa honest to god gasps. His unoccupied hand flies to his chest to clutch at his jacket. “Are you always this rude?”

“You started being rude by calling me a weird cutesy nickname. So, what do you want?”

Oikawa regards him with narrowed eyes for a moment, before his features smooth into an unnervingly bright smile. He swoops down to steal a cucumber from Iwaizumi’s shopping basket and proceeds to imperiously wave the vegetable in his face.

“I’ve got you all figured out, Iwa-chan. You show up here out of nowhere, all mysterious dark horse, work your way up the list, and suddenly your name is all I hear. You steal my kouhai’s hero worship complex, and even Suga-chan won’t stop gushing about you.” He sniffs. “But I am onto you. I know it’s my place you’re aiming for, and since I am an incredibly accommodating person” —here the smile turns sickly sweet— “be warned that I will not tolerate this. From here on, it’s all-out war between us.”

He punctures his last sentence by making a stabbing motion with the cucumber before he gingerly places it in his own shopping basket, apparently having said his piece. Iwaizumi can only watch, stunned, as Oikawa gives a little wave and saunters off.

“What the fuck”, he mutters to himself once the fluffy hair has disappeared behind a shelf full of chips bags. Shaking his head, he puts both of the detergent bottles back and grabs a random blue one, then returns to the vegetables to get himself a new cucumber. If Hanamaki dares to complain about his laundry smelling like ‘sea foam’, he can go buy his own damn detergent.

It’s half past six by the time he has gotten through the checkout and made his way to the dorm, only to have Oikawa’s name jump out at him when he passes by the notice board. Maybe he is cursed or something.

A couple of the floors have screwed their lights out, or whatever you need to do to drop your entire corridor into pitch-black darkness. Hanamaki would know. Iwaizumi is glad that the doors are still visible on Kindaichi’s floor, although the silence there is rather unnerving. Usually, the freshman floors are the loudest.

He knocks and tries not to feel like the noise is echoing off the silent walls. There is a muffled squeak from inside the room.

“Kindaichi, I know you’re in there.”

More small noises, then hesitant steps.

“I-Iwaizumi-senpai!”, Kindaichi stutters through the door. “I’m… I’m going to need you to promise me that you don’t have either of our knives before I can let you in.”

“I could just lie”, Iwaizumi points out. His shopping bags are digging into his wrists. He still has a chunk of reading to do for Tuesday.

“But you wouldn’t?”

He snorts. “Don’t count on it. But yeah, I don’t have your knives.”

He listens patiently to the sound of tape being pried off. Kindaichi blinks at him owlishly when the door finally opens. On stepping in, Iwaizumi realizes why: the room is darkened; all the blinds are drawn. The only source of light comes from a laptop on one of the beds. On the same bed is a blanket-covered lump. It smells like all college boys’ rooms smell when the windows haven’t been opened for too long, a little like socks and a little like old instant ramen.

“He fell asleep”, Kindaichi explains in a whisper, pointing to the lump which, now that Iwaizumi’s eyes have gotten used to the almost-dark, is definitely the shape of a boy curled up under multiple pillows and blankets. “We were marathoning his horror movies and he fell asleep. I’ve changed to something nicer.”

“You haven’t been out at all since yesterday morning, have you?”

Kindaichi blushes (at least Iwaizumi assumes he does). “I’m just thinking strategically. A couple of people will be eliminated during the week, so there’ll be less risk by Monday? And Kunimi said he didn’t have a chance anyway, so why bother? I think he plans on skipping most of his classes next week”, he adds, sounding worried.

“Don’t think I’ll explain all that stuff to you if you decide to do the same”, Iwaizumi says, quickly cutting off Kindaichi’s frantic assurances that he’d _never_. “I’ve brought you some fruit and some takeaway stuff. The kitchens seem a bit too dark to cook in at the moment. I think someone has stolen all the lightbulbs.”

Kindaichi knots his fingers together and dips into the deepest bow Iwaizumi has ever had directed towards himself. “Ah, thank you, Iwaizumi-senpai! You should stay and eat with us—I mean, would you like to stay and eat with us?”

Iwaizumi reaches out to ruffle Kindaichi’s spiky hair. It’s almost a reflex by this time. “Thanks, but I can’t. I have another kid to tend to, and some actual work to do. Stay safe, both of you!”

While Kindaichi pries the tape off for the second time in five minutes, Iwaizumi’s brain catches up with his mouth. Sugawara is probably right when he calls him a mother hen, he muses, but then the whole analogy isn’t entirely wrong either. It’s not like either of them couldn’t fend for themselves, but it’s also not like they wouldn’t benefit from someone looking after them a bit. Occasionally.

Sitting on the floor surrounded by a pile of random objects and frowning intensely, Hanamaki proves to be a case in point. He looks up when Iwaizumi enters, his face brightening.

“Aaah, you brought food!”

Iwaizumi chucks off his shoes and heads for the kitchenette to finally dump the bags somewhere. “No thanks to you. What’s up with that sad excuse for a shopping list?”

Hanamaki wiggles his toes. “I have absolute faith in your ability to think independently. Can you toss me an apple?”

Iwaizumi aims it at his head and takes some small satisfaction from the fact that Hanamaki barely manages to catch it in time. He begins to store away the shopping to the sounds of Hanami munching his apple and shuffling through the junk he’s spread around himself.

“What are you doing in this weird playpen here anyway? Is that a wet sock? And a bunch of all-blue Lego bricks? A dead flower?”

“I’m looking for _inspiration_ ”, Hanamaki declares grandly.

“For a performance art piece about consumer society?”

“For the best damn kill anyone has ever made on this campus.”

“That was… uncharacteristically solemn.”

“Have you read the notice board?”, Hanamaki shoots back.

“Nope”, Iwaizumi says, crouching down to shove a bag of vegetables into the cupboard. When he comes back up, Hanamaki is waving the core of his apple in Iwaizumi’s general direction. He’s experiencing a strange sort of déjà vu.

“Matsukawa Issei. Literature and theatre major. He’s legendary. Last year he got the girl doing IT for the library by jamming all the printers on the second floor. Another guy he got by staging a fall down the stairs of the sociology building, complete with fake blood. Go downstairs and look at what he did _today_. I want to play him.”

“Did he have a go at you today or what?”

“No, Iwaizumi, you don’t understand. I need to fucking get this guy. And some of this”––he gestures towards the objects strewn around him––“is going to help me.”

“Right”, says Iwaizumi. “I’m going to make myself some dinner and then get to this stack of reading on my desk. I’ll leave you to your budding obsession.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much later, already drifting off to sleep, Iwaizumi wonders dimly at what point he’d have to dodge the first attempt at his own ‘life’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**MURDER WEEK RANKING, DAY 2: TOP TEN**

 

~~Ono Takeji (9)~~

Ichisada Masuyo (9)

Oikawa Tooru (8)

Nametsu Mai (7)

~~Yamamoto Taketora (7)~~

Iwaizumi Hajime (6)

Hanamaki Takahiro (6)

Aone Takanobu (5)

Akaike Chie (5)

~~Terushima Yuuji (5)~~

Kuroo Tetsurou (5)

Nishinoya Yuu (5)

Minobe Shunsho (5)

 

(three names scratched out in red ink; three others added.

 

Below in blue:)

 

stop messing with my tally!

 

 

**MOST NOTEWORTHY**

 

  * 08:48 am, a first-year climbs the tree outside the sciences library and is rescued by a passing group of lecturers. He is shepherded away and escapes, for now, unscathed.
  * 10:17 am, a bag of coffee beans is spilled at the campus café in a daring escape made by a second-year. Passersby restore staff’s faith in humanity by volunteering to clean the entry area. To revoke a pervasive rumour: there is no general rule about free coffee during Murder week! It was just a thank you!
  * 02:13 pm, 02:37 pm, 03:04 pm: three students are overpowered by an elderly man with a beard and a walking stick who claims to be a visiting scholar from Waseda University. He lures his victims away from their peers under the pretext of needing directions to the Department of Entomology and makes engaging conversation with them for a number of minutes before assassinating them. We have a hunch!
  * 05:53 pm, Matsukawa Issei owns up to the three above Murders, humbly calling it ‘a bit of a costume test for an upcoming project’.
  * 09:13 pm, to whoever thought it would be a good idea to screw the lightbulbs out of all the kitchen lamps on the 4th floor, there are people without flashlights and/or smartphones who also need to cook dinner. Please give the lightbulbs back or at least provide a couple of flashlights for common use.



 

 

Attached to the board with a yellow pin: a blurry polaroid photo of someone wearing a bedsheet with eye holes walking an unspecified corridor, carrying a steaming bowl and a sign that reads “I am wearing only this sheet, which I can rip off in about 0.6 seconds. Don’t come too close.”

 

 

(another sheet pinned to the board, printed in red ink:

 

  * 09:54 am, a second-year runs into a glass door in the economics department and is escorted away by his assailant. Rumours say he escaped with a mild concussion, albeit without his dignity. Memorize the locations of your doors, people. 
  * 2:36 pm, the captain of the visiting volleyball team stops two assassinations on his way to the changing rooms before he is enlightened as to how Murder week works. Once the wronged parties have recovered from the homily they have been given, they may collect their knives from the sports department’s lost-and-found.)



 

 

(below, handwritten in blue: people have specifically asked for these not to be included, you jerk)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm taking bets on who's writing the notes until next chapter!


	3. 03_MONDAY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unknown (10:21): oh haha iwa-chan very clever  
> Unknown (10:21): and very mature  
> Unknown (10:21): I am going to annihilate you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *updates after 4 months*
> 
> in honour of tumblr user [monokkrome](https://monokkrome.tumblr.com/) who told me about her adventures in an actual assassin game and made my week ~~until i forgot to reply like the idiot i am~~

At six a.m., Iwaizumi silences his alarm and pulls on running gear in the scanty light of his phone. It’s a dark kind of morning, with barely a hint of light yet. Hanamaki is snoring peacefully, curled into a tight ball. He has pushed half of his blanket out onto the floor. Iwaizumi steps over it carefully and tiptoes to the small sink next to the door to splash his face with cold water and brush his teeth with as little noise as possible, and finally collects from his desk what he needs for his mission. He’s still on tiptoe on his way to the door, which is probably what saves him.

He hears the attack before he sees it, movement of shoes scuffing over the carpeted floor, an odd swish of air where there shouldn’t be one. In that split-second where he instinctively ducks away and slams the door shut, he sees the flash of the knife in the faint grey morning light that trickles in from the end of the corridor, where the long windows are.

Behind him, Hanamaki shoots up in bed with a startled snort and hits the light switch of his bedside lamp. Someone curses outside.

“Wha?”, says Hanamaki, peering at Iwaizumi with his eyes squeezed almost shut against the sudden brightness.

Iwaizumi leans against the wall and breathes out some sort of helpless laugh.

“Out there”, he whispers, indicating the door with a tiny movement of his head.

The attempt at stealth is lost on his roommate.

“Ooh”, exclaims Hanamaki, pushing himself up further and dumping his phone on the floor in the process. It lands with a dull thud. Hanamaki doesn’t seem to care. He isn’t wearing a shirt. “Someone finally out to get you! Lemme watch!”

“Yeah, finally”, Iwaizumi murmurs. He pushes himself off the wall and returns to the middle of the room. Their walls are so thin that the person outside can probably guess at both of their positions inside simply by hearing their voices. “It could be for you, though.”

Hanamaki yawns, rubbing his eyes. “Nah man, people know _you’re_ the one who keeps ridiculous hours.”

They both still for a moment, listening. From outside comes the sound of soft, impatient steps – the attacker is pacing. Like some fucking tiger. Iwaizumi snorts.

“Okay”, he mouths to Hanamaki, “let’s see who’s out there.”

Hanamaki nods, yawning again, and fixes his eyes on the door.

The pacing outside stops as a belated reaction to the sudden silence inside the room, slightly to the right of the door. Iwaizumi approaches as quietly as he can, and when there is no movement on the other side he throws the door open. It knocks a dark, bulky figure off balance, and then he is outside and has someone with their chest to the wall, holding both wrists firmly behind their back. The knife quivers angrily in a clenched fist.

“Fuck”, snarls the person, with feeling. It’s definitely a guy.

“Leave the walls intact, darling”, Hanamaki warbles from inside the room, accompanied by excessive rustling of bedclothes.

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. After the light of the bedside lamp, the corridor appears almost pitch-black again, but his vision is adjusting quickly. His attacker is a little shorter, stocky, with close-cropped hair that is bleached blonde with two odd dark streaks shorn in. He also doesn’t do a half-bad job about struggling out of his grip. Iwaizumi tries to be gentle about twisting the knife out of his hand, at least. He gets a grunt and another, rather graphic curse.

“Let go!”

“Sorry, buddy”, he mutters, kicking the knife out of reach, “all’s fair, and all that.”

The guy twists around and glares at him over his shoulder. He looks like he hasn’t slept in three nights. Or maybe in two, and the rest is smudged eyeliner. He also looks like he’s a second-year at best. Iwaizumi really hopes he hasn’t spent all night on the floor in front of their door, although the crumpled look of his jeans and hoodie seems to suggest exactly that.

“Oi, Hanamaki”, Iwaizumi calls, voice low. It _is_ barely a quarter past six a.m., after all, which also means that he is running late. “Some help on the finer rules of this game, if you please.”

Hanamaki comes padding out and casually leans in the doorway, barefoot and still without a shirt. Grumpy Kid whips around to scowl at the wall, face red with a mixture of humiliation and fury. Iwaizumi feels rather sorry on his behalf. He probably has an unhealthy amount of pride.

“I guess I can take my own knife off people, but only temporarily?”

Hanamaki shrugs. “Probably. Maybe he can still club you over the head and leave you for dead in some alley, though.”

“Asshole”, Iwaizumi retorts without heat. “Listen, which floor was that big cleaning supplies closet on?”

Hanamaki’s teeth gleam in a sudden, broad smile.

“Fourth”, he says, ducking back into their room. His voice comes floating out over the sound of a drawer opening and closing. “Though you could just put him in the one up here?”

“Too claustrophobic”, Iwaizumi calls after him.

“I can hear you just fine, you know”, Grumpy Kid mutters defiantly.

Iwaizumi turns back to him. He supposes he’s lucky that the guy is pretty recognizable, what with his hair and fierce scowl. That might come in handy in the following days, assuming that Grumpy Kid doesn’t lose his knife to some more nondescript person. Somehow he rather doubts that.

“Hey”, he addresses the guy, who reluctantly drags his eyes off the wall to glare daggers at him. “You have any morning classes today?”

That seems to startle the kid into honest confusion for a moment. “No?”

“Have you got your phone with you?”

“What is this, a fucking interrogation?”

“So, yes. Hanamaki, you wanna come with?”

“Wouldn’t miss it”, Hanamaki says gleefully, flouncing out of their room again. He looks a little more decent now, wearing pink socks and pulling a shirt over his head. He picks up the knife from the floor and looks like he’s waiting for them to start moving, so Iwaizumi gently steers Grumpy Kid towards the stairs.

“You’re just gonna what, lock me into a fucking supplies closet?”, Grumpy Kid spits and makes another valiant attempt at twisting out of his grasp.

“I really don’t want to put you in a headlock”, Iwaizumi warns him.

“I’d like to see you try”, snaps Grumpy Kid, and then he swears.

Iwaizumi sighs.

Hanamaki positively _glows_ with glee.

He holds the door open for them and they slowly shuffle down the stairs to the fourth floor, since apparently someone has decided that disabling the lights in the entire stairwell would be a wonderful idea. Whistling under his breath, Hanamaki expertly picks the lock and draws the door of the supplies closet open with a flourish, revealing a dingy space crammed full of metal shelves and dusty bottles. In one corner leans a droopy-looking broom. Hanamaki clicks the single lightbulb on and off and wiggles his non-existing eyebrows.

“Room for one, even with electricity. Quite a luxury these days, or so I’ve heard. In you go!”

Iwaizumi is a little worried that Grumpy Kid might try something stupid once they have him in the closet, but he just stands there and glowers at them. He closes the door and bolts it, then pushes the knife through under it.

“I’m sure someone will come to get you soon”, he calls through the cheap wood. A scoff is all he gets for an answer. Hanamaki cackles, and Iwaizumi elbows him.

“Shut it. And thanks for your help with the doors. I gotta get going, I’m sure you’ll manage the journey back on your own.”

“With difficulty”, says Hanamaki, faking a sob. “Anyway, good luck on your voyeuristic adventure. Don’t let the big guys catch you!”

Iwaizumi chooses not to reply. Through the corridor windows he can see that the sky is already a dark purplish colour, and he’d rather not be spotted by too many people. He raises a hand to Hanamaki and turns towards the stairs, taking two steps at a time on his way down. The noticeboard is in the dark when he passes it, but he can make out the shapes of at least two new photos and something that looks like a long strip of fabric.

Running at his normal pace, it takes him about fifteen minutes to reach the gym. The volleyball team’s morning practice is well underway by then, as is evident from the lights in the windows and the faint sounds of balls and shoes and shouting. Iwaizumi creeps around the building and tries a side door, hoping to slip in unnoticed. It’s locked, as are the two others he passes, but the main door is open, and no janitor is drawn by the awful creaking sound of its hinges. From there on it’s only a matter of finding the right locker room.

Iwaizumi walks along a dimly lit corridor for a while, turning corners until he sees the spill of light out from under a closed door all the way at the back. He tries its handle and finds it unlocked. Oikawa’s coat is easy to spot among the row of others; it’s the same one he has worn in the most recent photos uploaded onto his very public Facebook page – some long buttony thing in a colour just fancy enough to probably not be simply called ‘blue’ in the stores. Not even a minute later, folds of coat carefully rearranged, Iwaizumi slips out of the locker room again.

When he arrives at the dorm building again after a proper morning run, he half expects the bulky form of his attacker to barrel out of some shadowy corner, but he reaches his room and then the showers without further incidents. He really hopes that someone has let the kid out of that closet, though.

Hanamaki is still out when he gets back, but there is a text message waiting for him.

 

 

Sugawara (07:03): breakfast before lab? :)

 

Iwaizumi (07:05): sure. I’ll be downstairs in 15

 

Sugawara (07:05): you’ll have to tell me EVERYTHING about your run-in with your nemesis yesterday evening!

 

Iwaizumi (07:06): sugawara

Iwaizumi (07:06): are you trying to pitch me and him against each other?

 

Sugawara (07:06): whatever are you talking about, Iwaizumi?

Sugawara (07:11): wow, you’re no fun :(

Sugawara (07:11): some shameless guy got me in the back while I was talking to Nekomata-san yesterday

Sugawara (07:11): let me enjoy this at least

 

Iwaizumi (07:12): okay fine, he accosted me in the supermarket and stole my cucumber

 

Sugawara (07:13): …….. thank you

Sugawara (07:13): what did you do to retaliate?

 

Iwaizumi (07:14): you’ll see

Iwaizumi (07:14): now stop distracting me and I’ll be down in a bit

 

Sugawara (07:14): ✧٩(•́⌄•́๑)و ✧

 

Iwaizumi (07:14): that was terrible

 

Sugawara (07:14): I try

 

 

 

 

Sugawara (09:26): sneaky, Iwaizumi, sneaky!

Sugawara (09:26): some spy network material for your amusement

Sugawara (09:26): [image attached]

Sugawara (09:27): [image attached]

Sugawara (09:27): [image attached]

 

Iwaizumi (09:28): did you honestly just wait until I was on the train

Iwaizumi (09:28): I’m surprised no one told him yet

 

Sugawara (09:29): Daichi just sent them to me, and then I needed a minute to laugh

 

Iwaizumi (09:29): they’re great, thanks

 

Sugawara (09:29): apparently there are bets now

 

Iwaizumi (09:29): on when he’ll discover it?

 

Sugawara (09:29): no, it won’t survive his next lecture, I’m afraid. He’s got too many fangirls, one of them will tell him

Sugawara (09:29): bets on who of you is going to win murder week

Sugawara (09:30): at least that’s what I’m being told ;)

 

Iwaizumi (09:30): I can and will turn off one of the machines

 

Sugawara (09:30): oh Hajime, we both know you won’t

 

 

 

 

 

Iwaizumi is in the middle of a lecture when his phone starts buzzing in his bag, angry and insistent. Cursing inwardly, he digs it out and hastily sets it on silent. There are multiple messages from an unknown number.

 

 

Unknown (10:21): oh haha iwa-chan very clever

Unknown (10:21): and very mature

Unknown (10:21): I am going to annihilate you

Unknown (10:21): BUT

Unknown (10:22): thanks for the compliment ﾟ.+:｡(〃ω〃)ﾟ.+:｡ ｷｬｧ♪

Unknown (10:22): I knew youd find me irresistible (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

 

 

Iwaizumi stares at the messages, looks up and finds that his professor has moved on to another slide. Feeling more irritated than is probably strictly necessary, he locks his phone and shoves it back into his bag, but the messages stubbornly remain somewhere in the back of his mind. Two slides and half a page of notes later, he puts his pen down with a sigh and pulls the phone out again to quickly type out an answer below his desk.

 

Iwaizumi (10:33): it wasn’t a compliment

 

 

Seconds later his phone lights up with a new message. He groans, and ducks his head apologetically when his neighbour throws him an aggravated glance.

 

 

Unknown (10:33): it sure sounded like one

 

Iwaizumi (10:33): whatever you need to boost your self-esteem

 

Unknown (10:33): excuse u nothing of mine needs boosting (￣^￣)

Unknown (10:34): this is the part where u confirm tht

Unknown (10:35): (っ- ‸ – ς)

Unknown (10:37): iwa-chaaan dont ignore meee

 

Iwaizumi (10:38): I’m in a lecture and you don’t even have anything to say

 

Unknown (10:38): okay okay ill stop

 

 

 

 

Unknown (12:03): is it safe to txt the great iwa-chan once again?

 

Iwaizumi (12:07): oh my god

Iwaizumi (12:07): what do you want

 

Unknown (12:07): i want to know ur count ofc

Unknown (12:07): as ur nemesis i need 2b constantly aware of ur progress nd whereabouts

 

Iwaizumi (12:08): you’re not my nemesis

Iwaizumi (12:08): your spelling might be, though

 

Unknown (12:08): im afraid u dont get to determine tht iwachan

Unknown (12:08): anyway tell me

Unknown (12:09): iwa-channnnn

Unknown (12:10): tellllll meeeeee

Unknown (12:10): tell me

Unknown (12:10): tell me

Unknown (12:10): tell

Unknown (12:11): me

 

Iwaizumi (12:11): god forbid I find a place to sit before I answer you

Iwaizumi (12:11): it’s 9

Iwaizumi (12:13): what, have I caught up with you?

 

Unknown (12:13): of course not!!

Unknown (12:13): im at 13 if u must know

 

Iwaizumi (12:14): let’s hope you reach that count until tonight

 

 

“Don’t text at the table! You’re supposed to watch my back”, Hanamaki complains through a mouthful of rice. “Who’s so important that you’re practically glued to your phone?”

“ _Someone_ gave Oikawa my number”, Iwaizumi mutters, decisively pocketing his phone. “He thinks he’s my nemesis now.”

“Told you it gets intense”, Hanamaki says happily. “Speaking of nemeses, yours might be mildly annoying, but mine is an _evil genius_ and I think I finally have an idea how to establish myself as his equal.”

Iwaizumi makes a vaguely encouraging hum.

“Yeah”, Hanamaki says, sounding ominous. “Don’t use the showers tonight.”

“I probably don’t want to know”, Iwaizumi says drily.

“On the contrary, you should be there to witness it. Support a friend!”

“Sorry man, I have lab tonight and a report due tomorrow. I’ll be back late.”

“I need to find friends who can properly appreciate my genius”, Hanamaki sighs.

“You’re welcome to Oikawa”, Iwaizumi deadpans. “He seems excitable enough.”

Hanamaki gives him a strange grin and abruptly starts talking about the colour of the mango pudding he bought for dessert.

 

 

At the library, Iwaizumi finds a seat with his back to the windows and settles down. Nothing much happens during the next hours, except that Oikawa texts him thrice to comment on interesting birds he’s passing on his way home, and seven times to make thinly veiled threats against his life, apparently undeterred by Iwaizumi’s lack of answers; a haggard-looking student whose name is on Iwaizumi’s newest knife stops by to drop his own knife in order to ‘save him the trouble’; and Hanamaki sends a selfie.

His grey shirt is darkened by streaks of water and soap, there are soap bubbles stuck to his hair and a bruise forming on his left cheek. The right side of his face is stained a deep green. He looks victorious, holding up a count of three with his unoccupied hand.

 

 

Meme Master (19:38): [image attached]

Meme Master (19:38): 10/10 experience would recommend

Meme Master (19:38): totally worth the scolding from the janitor and two weeks of cleaning duty

 

Iwaizumi (19:40): what happened to your face

 

Meme Master (19:41): someone accidentally hit me with their bottle of conditioner

 

Iwaizumi (19:41): how did you even get three people? You’d think they’d start getting the hang of it after a while

 

Meme Master (19:41): you’d also think more of them would care enough to not wear clothes

Meme Master (19:42): but they’re weak and easily misled

 

 

 

Meme Master (20:16): don’t come home tonight, honey

Meme Master (20:16): your stalker is lurking about the stairwell scaring innocent first-years

Meme Master (20:16): is he a jilted ex or a jealous lover? You should really tell me these things, I don’t feel very valued

 

Iwaizumi (20:19): leave the window unlocked, will you?

 

Meme Master (20:19): yeah yeah just text me before you come up the fire escape spiderman

 

 

 

 

 

 

**MURDER WEEK RANKING, DAY 3: TOP TEN**

 

Nametsu Mai (15)

Oikawa Tooru (15)

Iwaizumi Hajime (14)

~~Ichisada Masuyo (14)~~

Daishou Suguru (13)

Aone Takanobu (12)

Shimizu Kiyoko (10)

~~Kuroo Tetsurou (10)~~

Nishinoya Yuu (10)

Minobe Shunsho (9)

Konoha Akinori (9)

Yaku Morisuke (9)

 

 

**MOST NOTEWORTHY**

 

Attached to the board with a green pin: a printout of a snapchat screenshot of five people in a nondescript parking lot, wearing matching panda onesies and masks. Captioned: _this year’s strategy: confuse and conquer_  

 

Attached with a cute fox-head pin: a polaroid of someone sleeping against the wall in a corridor, covered by a light blue blanket. Blue ballpoint pen script below: _i’m sorry you fell asleep and missed me after camping out in front of our room all night. Hope this keeps you warm. Better luck next time!! xx_

 

Attached with a strip of adhesive tape: a grey silk neck-tie, with a note on a yellow post-it: to the loser who thought handcuffing a girl with his tie to assassinate her is a) necessary and b) a working tactic. My friends said you almost cried when I took it from you, so here.

 

 

  * 06:04 am, a second-year thought it brilliant to soap the floor of the second bathroom on the fifth floor. He has obtained a new knife as well as a mild concussion. His victim thankfully displayed a better sense of balance. Thanks to everyone who helped to clean up!
  * 09:11 am, witnesses from the law faculty report an impressive duel between a second-year would-be assassin and a third-year student armed with a red stiletto. The unsuccessful assassin fled the scene after one of his sleeves obtained a nasty tear.
  * 12:34 am, a first-year escapes an assassination attempt by pelting his attacker with the contents of two grocery bags. Six apples and three packages of instant ramen have been recovered and await their owner at apt. 372.
  * 6:50 pm, a diligent third-year student hid dye pellets in the shower heads on various floors. Posing as a recent victim of the prank, he killed three and stained two dozen others before the janitor was alerted after a good hour. 
  * finally: are we witnessing the rise of a new Great Rivalry? Several students spotted reigning Murder champion of the last two consecutive years Oikawa Tooru wearing a challenge pinned to his coat. Stay tuned for new developments!



 

 

(On a separate sheet, hastily scrawled in by now familiar red ink):

 

your deduction skills are pathetically lacking – there’s no question of a rivalry! Considering that _you’re on, pretty boy_ is a challenge accepted, one must deduce that Oikawa has been the one to pose the challenge in the first place. And while I hate to agree with you, yes indeed: stay tuned!

 

Other things you’ve missed today:

 

  * 3:44 pm, a second-year fled into the river to escape her assassin, who was unfortunately not deterred by a bit of cold water. Witnesses report a water fight of epic dimensions.
  * 4:01 pm, a third-year barricaded himself in a classroom by stacking tables against the door. The professor teaching there reportedly took a break to cheer him on, although she did not permit her students to help with the tables.



 

 

(in blue, on the same sheet):

 

I know it’s you, Futakuchi. Stop.

 

 

(small, in red):

 

Make me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would you believe that I originally started this fic because I wanted to write more iwaoi texting


	4. 04_TUESDAY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, Iwa-chan”, Oikawa says by way of greeting. Today, he’s wearing smart trousers and a truly terrible jumper with some kind of alien print. Crossing the space between them, Iwaizumi tries and fails to look away. “What’s your count today? Still trying to keep up with me?”

Tuesday begins abruptly, with Hanamaki shaking Iwaizumi awake. This is unusual, considering the fact that Hanamaki is rarely up and coherent before 9 a.m. if he can help it. Iwaizumi wonders vaguely if the fire alarm has gone off, but it’s far too quiet for that. In fact, it’s far too quiet to be anything but the dead of night.

“What the hell”, he mumbles, pushing the blurry form of his roommate off in the dark. “Why are you up?”

Hanamaki shushes him imperiously and leans right back into his personal space.

“Your stalker is outside again”, he whispers, stale night breath in Iwaizumi’s face. “He’s really bad at stealth. Woke me up with his sneezing.”

Iwaizumi clumsily gropes for his phone and squints at the screen. 03:46, it blinks at him before going to sleep again. He’d really like to follow that example, but Hanamaki’s grip on his arm is that of a man with a plan. He sighs and tries to clear his throat as quietly as possible.

“Okay. Suggestions?”

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Right.”

“Your complete lack of imagination never ceases to amaze me,” Hanamaki sighs theatrically. He finally lets go of Iwaizumi’s bicep, but only to settle down cross-legged on the floor immediately in front of the bed so that his animated face is level with Iwaizumi’s impassive one. “Look, this game is not about simply wrestling others into submission. A truly outstanding player strives for both memorability and evil genius.”

On his really comfortable pillow in the dark, Iwaizumi is pretty sure that if he lets his roommate whisper-ramble on for one more sentence, he’s going to go back to sleep.

“So”, he interrupts instead, not wanting to risk another shaking, “what are you gonna do.”

“I don’t know, man.” Hanamaki hums pensively. “I must have eaten something bad yesterday. I’ve got a feeling I’ll be in and out of this room at least twenty times in the next two hours.”

And he smiles a smile of pure delight, in the face of which Iwaizumi can, although he only sees the bare edges of it in the darkness of the room, not help but smile back.

“Just stay here and pretend to be asleep. I might leave the door open once or twice so that he will have direct visual contact with his sadly utterly unattainable prey.” Hanamaki pushes himself up, walking towards the door with purpose.

Iwaizumi has time to briefly and mentally note never to make an enemy of his roommate, before the door opens and a scuffle breaks out.

“What the fuck man, I’m just trying to go to the bathroom”, Hanamaki can be heard whining outside. Sounds of altercation cease abruptly as the voice probably registers as belonging to the wrong person. 

There is no response for a second, then a sullen “sorry” and a _tsk_ from Hanamaki, before his steps disappear down the corridor. Silence reigns again. Iwaizumi rolls onto his side to watch the door. A shadow is creeping over the slim rectangle of light on the floor where Hanamaki has left it ajar. Probably the guy is trying to peer into the room. The shadow moves away with an annoyed sigh, and a dull thump indicates that the kid is leaning against the wall again.

After a little while, Hanamaki’s steps return, slow in awkward silence as he passes the guy outside, and then he slips into the room and closes the door, shaking with soundless laughter. He tiptoes over to Iwaizumi’s bed and climbs in without asking, unceremoniously shoving Iwaizumi’s feet away and dodging the resulting half-hearted kick.

“You should have seen his face”, he whispers, voice hoarse from keeping back the laughter. “I bet it’s gonna go exactly the same way next time. Guy has no impulse control.”

Iwaizumi watches as he settles against the footboard, pulls out his phone and starts typing. The blueish glow of the screen illuminates a face perfectly content with the situation. 

“Okay”, he murmurs, sitting up as well and shoving his blanket down to free his arms. “If we’re gonna be awake now anyway, I’m gonna do some work.”

“No light!” hisses Hanamaki, throwing himself across the bed to bat his hand away from the bedside lamp. “You’re asleep, remember? We haven’t taped the door shut! Geez, Iwaizumi, how are you this far up on the list?”

Iwaizumi glares at him, but it’s lost in the darkness. “You can’t seriously expect me to stay awake for the next two hours, in the dark, doing nothing?”

“Not doing nothing”, says Hanamaki, already busily swiping at his phone again. “I need someone to send me gifts in that fruit game. Chop, chop, get to it!”

 

 

 

“Oh come on”, yells Grumpy Kid when he sees the supplies closet on the eighth floor. At quarter to 7a.m., neither Iwaizumi nor Hanamaki had felt much like taking the stairs. “My stupid roommate sleeps until eight every day!”

“Maybe bring some light reading next time”, Hanamaki suggests blithely, pulling open the door.

It is rather cramped, Iwaizumi suspects, although it sports a dusty bucket that could be turned upside down and made into a makeshift seat. The kid looks tired enough to catch a wink of sleep or two. In fact, he himself is seriously contemplating a power nap before his 8 a.m. class, if only because it might be beneficial to look awake for his own presentation; but he opts for dragging Hanamaki to the kitchen with him to go over his slides one last time, and takes some mental strength from watching his roommate nod off over his coffee mug twice.

 

 

 

“So”, says Sugawara out of the corner of his mouth, never looking up from the careful notes he’s making, “I heard your morning was a success?”

“Relatively speaking”, Iwaizumi mutters. It’s barely eleven and he’s nursing his third cup this morning. In all truth, he has wasted almost two hours trailing a girl around campus only to lose her when she took a back door out of her lecture theatre that Iwaizumi hadn’t noticed before because it had been obscured by a giant map of Australia. (He _had_ run into her twenty minutes later in a coffee queue (his second cup), but that had felt more like chance than like success.) He is, however, still in possession of a knife and has not fallen asleep during the presentation, so there’s that.

“How’d you hear anyway?”

“The guy you keep locking up – his roommate is one of my former underclassmen. He’s excellent at sending aggravated texts, and very bad at waking up.”

Iwaizumi snorts into his terrible canteen coffee. 

Sugawara daintily caps his pen and takes a sip out of his own cup. “Daichi is out, by the way”, he informes Iwaizumi with a disappointed grimace. “Got blindsided by the basketball team’s captain after practice this morning. The guy asked for his help clearing up an issue with the gym janitor, and you know Daichi. Gullible enough to follow him into that ridiculously shady corridor where the janitor’s office is, and there spectacularly assassinated – he claims, although there was no one there to watch.”

He grimaces again and takes another sip of coffee.

“Hajime, you must absolutely promise me to stay in the game until Thursday at least.”

“Careful”, says Iwaizumi, “I might suspect you of running a secret, but highly lucrative betting pool. Why else would you be so overly invested in my success?”

Sugawara only smiles, and turns a page.

“Seen Oikawa around lately?”, he asks a little later.

Iwaizumi is in the middle of scribbling a margin note and shakes his head without looking up. “Nah, my phone’s been blissfully silent all morning.”

“Hm”, makes Sugarawa, in a falsely innocent tone that makes Iwaizumi abandon his margin note after all. “And that after he spent all of morning practice complaining to Daichi how unfairly cool you are.”

Iwaizumi chokes on a mouthful of coffee.

Sugawara only giggles and goes back to his note-taking, regularly turning pages like the unflappable bastard that he is. When they leave their table twenty minutes later, Iwaizumi finds that he, on the other hand, has not made any significant progress.

On top of that, when he comes home to dump his bag he only makes it to the second floor before having to sprint up the remaining six flights of stairs at breakneck speed barely an arm’s length ahead of his attacker – in the half-dark, because apparently now all the lightbulbs have been unscrewed and someone has made a valiant but not very detail-oriented attempt at taping shut all the windows. On the fourth floor – or fifth, it’s hard to say really –, they swerve wildly around the stocky figure of the janitor, who is occupied with painstakingly peeling black extra sticky tape from a glass pane, muttering angrily.

Iwaizumi does a mental calculation and concludes that Hanamaki probably isn’t home and there is no time to unlock the door, so he skids into the kitchen, by now a meagre three steps ahead, and lets the first available cupboard stop most of his momentum, legs burning. The kid isn’t half bad at running. His cursing is a bit on the unimaginative side though.

“Fucking hell”, comes emphatically floating through the open kitchen door, originating from somewhat lower than the kid’s height, so he’s probably standing there with his hands braced on his thighs much like Iwaizumi – except out on the corridor.

“You know you can come in, right?”

A breathless scoff is all the answer he gets. Wrong approach probably. The guy stays where he is, panting, and seems to settle into his usual routine of not budging until one of them absolutely has to. A quick look at his phone tells Iwaizumi he will probably be running late for study group.

 

 

Iwaizumi (15:37): trapped in the kitchen. Can I take a rain check?

 

Kiyoko (15:40): Sarukui’s not using his phone this week, something about murder week and tracking software… We’ll manage without you :) Dinner later, somewhere off campus?

 

Iwaizumi (15:40): sure, I’ll let you know when I get out of here.

 

 

For now, he boils the kettle and pulls out a chair by the windows. Thankfully, their kitchen has been spared the taping and enough light is slanting in to make the bare room almost cheerful – for now. He takes out his reading to continue where he left off, and fills two mugs with tea. Maybe relentless politeness is the way to go.

“Hey, I made you some tea. Kitchen’s a safe space, and the chairs here are a lot better than the floor outside.”

“I’m not gonna leave you alone just because you make nice with me”, the kid retorts gruffly, still through the wall.

Iwaizumi huffs a laugh. “Didn’t expect that.”

He’s almost willing to gamble that the kid will be too embarrassed to stay and quietly skid off, but a minute or so later he peeks his head round the doorframe. His eyes flit over Iwaizumi a little too quickly, but then he does step in and hesitantly take up one of the mugs from the counter, selecting a chair at a careful distance.

“Thanks”, he mutters.

Iwaizumi shrugs. “Figured we’re gonna be here a while.”

The kid grunts and stares out of the window, evidently not wishing to continue the conversation. If possible, he looks even worse for wear than he did yesterday – not surprising considering Hanamaki’s stunts tonight. He’s wearing a different hoodie, at least.

Iwaizumi silently works through the rest of his unfinished chapter. The kid hasn’t budged. He has been hoping that maybe he would have an afternoon lecture to go to, but evidently he has nothing better to do for the next foreseeable time than stare out of the window, looking tired, slightly pissed off, and hungry. The kitchen is unusually empty, except for the two of them.

Iwaizumi stretches and scrapes back his chair. “Want some cereal?”

“What?” The kid sounds almost alarmed.

“Cereal”, Iwaizumi repeats, pulling open a cabinet door and rifling through the contents of the shelves. Someone has taken all the oats again. On the next shelf over is a giant, brightly coloured box that sounds almost full when he shakes it.

It’s Bokuto’s stash; little sugary owls made from some sort of popped grain and too much artificial dye. But considering Bokuto stole most of Iwaizumi’s popcorn the last time the floor had a movie night, and then proceeded to waste most of it by trying to throw it into his lanky friend’s open mouth through half the room, missing embarrassingly most of the time and whining about that so persistently that someone had felt compelled to put the subtitles on…

“Um”, says the kid, clearly out of his depth. Maybe because of the owls.

Iwaizumi pours some owls into a bowl and adds milk from the communal fridge, not before sniffing it. He puts the bowl down in front of the kid who says “thanks” again and gives him a bewildered glance. He hesitantly takes a first spoonful, but soon starts shovelling the cereal into his mouth unceremoniously enough to make Iwaizumi wonder whether he has eaten anything else today.

He’s almost reached the bottom of the bowl when his phone rings and makes him jump. It’s an older model, isolation bad enough that Iwaizumi can mostly hear both sides of the conversation from his seat two tables over.

“Kentarou, I’m really sorry to disturb you”, says a female voice, sounding harrassed.

Iwaizumi witnesses an astonishing transformation in the kid’s voice and posture. He pulls back his shoulders and starts sounding almost reassuring. “It’s no problem, Oba-san.”

“Could you walk Hibiki-chan today? Masami-chan is sick and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to leave the house. I’m so sorry.”

“Uh”, says the kid, glancing at Iwaizumi and back at the table, “uhm, yeah, sure. I’ll be over in half an hour, don’t worry.”

The woman on the phone thanks him profusely and hangs up to a sudden wail from the background and excited barking.

“I gotta go”, says the kid – Kentarou, apparently.

Iwaizumi just nods, preoccupied with incorporating this new information. He watches as Kentarou carefully rinses his bowl and puts it on the drying rack, keeping his back turned to the tables the entire time. He turns around just long enough to half-raise a hand in an awkward goodbye, and then he’s out of the door and Iwaizumi is left alone in the kitchen, shaking his head with something akin to bewildered fondness.

He messages the study group chat about dinner whenever they finish and carries his bag back to his room to pick up some new reading in case he gets stuck somewhere later today before heading out again. Figuring he should try to change up his habits to reduce the chances of being routinely assaulted in the darkened stairwell, he spends what feels like five full minutes in the terrible elevator, impatiently scrolling through his news feed until the thing stutters to a stop and the wonky doors open to a panoramic view of the foyer – right across from the notice board and none other than Oikawa Tooru, who has pushed his face close enough to yesterday’s tally that Iwaizumi suspects he probably needs glasses.

Oikawa turns at the sound of the doors rattling open. When he spots Iwaizumi, his face lights up with recognition and he immediately straightens, leaning against the wall in a pose that’s probably supposed to convey casual coolness.

“So, Iwa-chan”, he says by way of greeting. Today, he’s wearing smart trousers and a truly terrible jumper with some kind of alien print. Crossing the space between them, Iwaizumi tries and fails to look away. “What’s your count today? Still trying to keep up with me?”

Iwaizumi shrugs. “Guess you’ll find out later today.”

He is rewarded with a flicker of irritation on Oikawa’s face before it’s quickly smoothed over with one of those blasé expressions that he apparently has an endless supply of.

“Well, I’ve had an exceptionally successful morning, so I assume that you will still be yapping at my heels when the new results come in tonight.”

Iwaizumi hums thoughtfully. “Mmh, how many people did you accidentally kill with your fashion choices alone?”

Oikawa’s eyes fly open. He looks like one of those ‘shocked’ emoji. Iwaizumi wonders vaguely if he has unlearned how to make genuine, measured expressions. It’s definitely not endearing.

“Insulting someone’s appearance is the lowest form of wit, Iwa-chan”, he chides, still with exaggerated indignation; although Iwaizumi thinks he can detect a faint hint of mirth in the corners of his mouth.

“Here I thought that was sarcasm.”

Iwaizumi peers past Oikawa at the list from yesterday. By now, it sports a few names crossed out with various ballpoint pens and one attempt of unclear intentions made with a marker pen – is it supposed to be crossed out, or highlighted?

Next to him, Oikawa sniffs. “Resorting to the well-trodden path, how disappointing.”

“Sorry not to live up to your expectations. I promise to be better behaved in the future”, Iwaizumi says drily.

“Good”, says Oikawa, “you can start by telling me your count.”

“So bossy.”

Oikawa’s posture slumps into something much more genuine and infinitely more likeable. “You’re no fun as a nemesis”, he complains. “You need to be more competitive!”

“Shut up”, Iwaizumi says, amused. “You think I’m cool.”

“Aah”, sighs Oikawa. “I knew I couldn’t trust Dai-chan. I have terrible friends. I don’t know why really, I deserve so much better.” He doesn’t look particularly aggrieved.

It’s almost like he was counting on this particular bit of information to reach its subject. Iwaizumi’s suspiciously narrowed eyes meet a blinding smile.

“Anyway”, sings Oikawa, suddenly already half-turned to go. “I have one of those pesky pandas to deal with today and my network is still gathering information, so you might have the chance to catch up a little – use it wisely!”

“Your… network”, echoes Iwaizumi, but Oikawa only gives him a little wave over his shoulder and disappears down the hall, looking entirely too purposeful.

Iwaizumi scowls. He casts a furtive glance around the empty foyer and pulls his phone out of his pocket. Oikawa’s chat is almost at the top of the list, and somehow it doesn’t even bother him.

 

 

Iwaizumi (17:02): what do you mean ‘your network’

 

Oikawa (17:04): im a professional iwa-chan

Oikawa (17:04): did u think it would be so easy to defeat the master?

Oikawa (17:04): good luck

 

 

“Oh, you’re _on_ , asshole”, Iwaizumi mutters, closing the chat without a reply and pulling up another one.

 

 

Iwaizumi (17:05): I need everything you can give me on Yamagata Hayato right now

Iwaizumi (17:05): I know he’s in the room next to you and the walls are thin, so what are his habits?

Iwaizumi (17:05): Sugawara will be grateful

 

Daichi (17:10): Why would Suga be grateful?

Daichi (17:11): Nevermind.

Daichi (17:12): He went out with some friends to get yakitori about five minutes ago.

Daichi (17:12): The scrawny guy with the undercut.

 

 

Iwaizumi smiles and pockets his phone, already heading for the doors. Oikawa might have an established network, but Iwaizumi isn’t half bad at building one from scratch if he has to.

 

 

 

Yamagata manages to hit him in the face with a half-eaten Yakitori, so it’s not strictly speaking a clean kill, but Iwaizumi is still in high spirits when he boards the bus that takes him out of campus towards the tiny hole-in-the-wall okonomiyaki place that the study group has chosen for dinner. He spends the ride texting various friends about the name on his newest knife, collecting bits and pieces until Kindaichi supplies the crucial information that the guy seems to be working the night shift at the campus konbini every other day.

 

 

Kindaichi (17:38): I didn’t see him there yesterday so I guess it’s his shift today

 

Iwaizumi (17:38): thanks Kindaichi

 

Kindaichi (17:38): no problem, senpai

 

Iwaizumi (17:38): I’m glad to hear you went out yesterday night

Iwaizumi (17:38): how’s your roommate doing?

Kindaichi (17:39): he still hasn’t left the room. He has got the guy who apparently always wins, so he says it’s no use even trying

 

~~Iwaizumi (17:40): what the fuck~~

~~Iwaizumi (17:40): that means no one is hunting Oikawa!~~

~~Iwaizumi (17:40): you mean no one is hunting Oikawa?~~

Iwaizumi (17:40): if he doesn’t want to play, shouldn’t he give someone else the chance to take down that guy? I bet the queue is a mile long

 

Kindaichi (17:42): just because he’s not playing does not mean he doesn’t want to win

Kindaichi (17:42): I mean, that’s what he said. I asked him

 

Iwaizumi (17:44): he does realise that in order to win, he will eventually have to leave the room and get Oikawa, right?

 

Kindaichi (17:45): he says he’ll burn that bridge when he gets to it

Iwaizumi (17:45): so, speaking of networks, did you know I know who’s got your knife?

 

Oikawa (17:47): mhh iwa-chan who says i dont?

 

Iwaizumi (17:47): if that’s supposed to be nonchalance, it’s a poor attempt

 

 

His silent phone is emanating such indignance that Iwaizumi is still grinning when he reaches the packed restaurant. Sarukui, who is nervously scanning the crowd from a corner table, spots him and waves him over.

 

“Someone’s in a good mood”, he observes instead of a greeting.

 

Kiyoko, also instead of a greeting, takes out a tissue and wipes some sauce from Iwaizumi’s cheek.

 

 

 

Later that night, after a quick detour to the konbini, Iwaizumi is just about to fall asleep when his phone buzzes on the nightstand. He reaches for it, thinking it might be Hanamaki, who has been conspicuously absent all day and hasn’t answered any messages, but it’s two notifications from Oikawa. He opens them, reading against the glare of the screen, and grins, tapping out a quick reply.

 

 

Oikawa (00:12): actually i dont know

Oikawa (00:12): if i buy you dinner will you tell me

 

Iwaizumi (00:12): if that’s supposed to be asking me out, it’s a poor attempt

Iwaizumi (00:12): in any case, try again

Iwaizumi (00:12): good night, Oikawa

 

 

 

 

 

**MURDER WEEK RANKING, DAY 4: TOP TEN**

 

Nametsu Mai (19)

Daishou Suguru (18)

Iwaizumi Hajime (17)

Oikawa Tooru (17)

Aone Takanobu (14)

~~Nishinoya Yuu (12)~~

~~Minobe Shunsho (11)~~

Shimizu Kiyoko (10)

 

Under the list is a sentence printed in slightly larger, tidily italicised font: _Okay, I have eight people who are still alive and tied at nine kills – I’m not going to list all of you and turn this into a top fourteen. Fight it out and come back tomorrow with a better score._

Scrawled underneath in messy red: _I’m so proud_

 

 

**MOST NOTEWORTHY**

 

Attached to the board with a sloppy strip of adhesive tape: a stock photo of a silver knife. Large black print reading: _Found a knife today. If you can tell me where & what name is on it, I’ll take that as proof of ownership and hand it over. Come to apt. 295._

Scrawled over this in large pastel green highlighter letters: _w e a k_

Attached to the board with the same green pin from yesterday, pinned above the snapchat printout of the pandas: an A4 sheet with unironic Comic Sans lettering (it says so in a handwritten note in the top right corner): _someone (not naming any names) threw a smelly potato sack over my head to blind and confuse me when I came out of my room this morning. I can testify to the absolute effectiveness of this barbaric method. They left the potato sack, so I’m selling it to the first person who’s willing to pay ¥500 to be a copycat. Apt. 769._

 

(Under a corner of the new sheet, one can just about spot that someone has crossed out one of the pandas with a thick blue pen.)

 

  * 07:53 am, I can’t believe I have to say this, but do not use actual knives in lieu of the plastic ones in this game!!! The two people who have foolishly tried this year will be facing very real and very deserved consequences, so for the rest of you, please be smarter!  

  * 10:17 am, a second year makes a cold war worthy kill by allegedly taping her knife to the tip of her umbrella and staking out her fourth-year victim on his way to the metro. Impressive use of real-life examples, if a tiny bit creepy.   

  * 1:07 pm, at least three people dressed as ninjas were spotted taking advantage of the near total darkness in the first year corridors. Two kills were reported so far. I’m not sure group assassinations are ethically justifiable in this game – stay safe, freshmen!  

  * 3:25 pm, Matsukawa Issei and an as yet unknown assailant were spotted engaged in a dramatic chase that involved a large bath towel, a rope, and the third floor of the maths and computer science building. Reports of a kill are as yet unverified.  
  

  * 6:28 pm, in attempting to escape his assassin, a freshman has boarded a bus without carrying a valid ticket. Small contributions to help pay for the fine can be made at Apt. 426. 



 

(On the by now expected separate sheet, in red):

Yikes, looks like you printed this too early again today.

  * 2:37 pm, Nakajima-sensei announces that her criminal law class’ last surviving student will see their favourite assassination made the case in this year’s moot – that’s what I call supportive faculty. You suckers better get creative! (hey, isn’t that one of the positive messages you love so much? See, I’m trying.)



(below, in very small blue: calling people ‘suckers’ kind of interferes with the overall positivity, but I acknowledge the attempt.) 

  * Annnd as far as Matsukawa is concerned, you have left out the most interesting bit yet again – we have a double hunt, people. After spectacularly escaping down the façade of the maths and comp sci building closely pursued by his assailant, he was later spotted dressed as a Musketeer and carrying a prop saber, engaged in an eerily well-choreographed duel with the same guy who made a valiant and for now successful attempt at defending himself with a heavy-looking leather satchel. These two are yet going to give us something to talk about, I’ll wager. Wanna take bets? I'm at 860, waiting to collect.  




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes, it's been over a year. i haven't given these two idiots up yet as you can see.


End file.
